HISTORY/ EVOLUTION OF EMO (1984-2022)

“Emo” is a label attached to artists that show a large dedication to expressing their personal life situations in an emotionally exaggerated way. This style of music was started in 1984 when Rites of Spring released their original demo which was filled with screams, emotional buildups, personal lyrics, and an overall filling/ sensitive sound. This strayed away from the hardcore punk scene at the time into something more passionate and personal as well as self-incriminatory. This genre would later become indie-infused over time with bands such as Split Lip, Sunny Day Real Estate, Dahlia Seed, Native Nod, and Cap’N Jazz bridging the gap from regular emocore to Midwest emocore.

In the 90’s emo became more experimental, with more screamo and Emoviolence bands starting up, and Midwest emo becoming the dominant sound. Pretty soon this second wave of emo would be popularized by Sunny Day Real Estate, the Get Up Kids, and Saves the Day.

The third wave of emo was its cultural and commercial peak with bands like Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Brand New, and Saves the Day being played on the radio. However, this increase in popularity would introduce posers into the genre. Due to mall-goths on myspace and an overall misunderstanding of emo, mall-emo would be born and thus blur the meaning of "emo".

In the 4th wave of emo, bands would return to the sounds of the second wave with more twinkly indie rock/ math rock guitars and whiny vocals. Keeping true to the original definition of emo, bands like Midwest Pen Pals, Snowing, Algernon Cadwallader, and the Hotelier would have emotional lyrics, sensitive sound, and emotional buildups. However, past this the lines get blurred further into the 5th wave where electronic music goes emo(?), but I'll just stick to the first four waves for now.

Yes, emo rap does exist. "XXXTENTACION - Al.one" and Nothing,Nowhere are two great examples.